


John's Stages of Grief, or: Five Times John and Mycroft had Fish and Chips and One Time They Didn't

by MycroftsGoldfishGal



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Five Stages of Grief, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Grieving John, John Loves Sherlock in an Undefined Way, John's Reichenbach Feels, John-centric, M/M, Minor Mary Morstan/John Watson, Mycroft Being Mycroft, Mycroft Feels, Mycroft's Meddling, Post-Reichenbach, Post-The Reichenbach Fall, Reichenbach Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-04
Updated: 2015-02-04
Packaged: 2018-03-10 10:52:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3287576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MycroftsGoldfishGal/pseuds/MycroftsGoldfishGal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock fell, leaving John alone and grief-stricken. Mycroft brings fish and chips. Post-Reichenbach canon-compliant.<br/>Warnings for angst, suicidal behavior.</p><p>Sherlock: And what about John Watson?<br/>Mycroft: John?<br/>Sherlock: Have you seen him?<br/>Mycroft: Oh yes. We meet up every Friday for fish and chips.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shock

_Sherlock: And what about John Watson?_   
_Mycroft: John?_   
_Sherlock: Have you seen him?_   
_Mycroft: Oh yes. We meet up every Friday for fish and chips._

 

 

**Five Times John and Mycroft had Fish and Chips, and One Time They Didn't**

 

_Shock_

 

John Watson's red-rimmed eyes watched the man sitting at the patio table. “What do you want?” he asked, all tone gone from his voice.

 

Mycroft Holmes gestured at the other chair with a nod. “Have a seat. I believe you haven't had dinner yet?”

 

“What do you want?” John repeated, folding his arms. His eyes blinked slowly now, and he struggled to keep them open.

 

“Well, at least sit down before you collapse. That would even be more embarrassing than my kidnapping you. Again.” Mycroft grinned, almost smirking.

 

John raised a hand and ran it through his hair, too long, and he should get it cut, he knew, it was hardly neat, but the idea of going to a barber, going to all that trouble, going out at all... He'd only left the house because he had to get milk. He shut his eyes tightly and tried not to hear the voice he knew would follow.

 

_'I'll be forever getting the milk, won't I? You never do a damned thing around here! The least you could do is remember to get the milk when you're already at the market buying pig livers and whatever else!'_

 

He sat, half-collapsing into the patio chair, glad for the ridiculous red velvet cushion on it, and stared down at the table, lace tablecloth and all.

 

“How have you been, John?” Mycroft asked, and a man in a suit approached them, carrying two plates of fish and chips, steaming hot.

 

John's stomach grumbled loudly.

 

“This is your favorite dish,” Mycroft said. “I was disappointed initially, I thought you'd have more exotic tastes. However, upon re-evaluation I discovered with the right chef, fish and chips could be quite excellent.”

 

_'How dare he minimize my genius? Even if he did come up with the answer first, this time... he... he's fat! All he eats is fried food and cake!'_

 

John's lips tugged into a grin, and he poured a heaping amount of vinegar onto the fish before lifting the silverware – made of real silver – and cutting into it.

 

Mycroft huffed, as if he knew exactly what John had been thinking. “You haven't been to work,” he finally said.

 

“What I do or don't do is no longer your business,” John mumbled before taking another bite. He swallowed before finishing, “Not that it ever was.”

 

“You were my business because Sherlock-”

 

“-Stop,” John spat, placing his hand on the table with a smack. He kept his eyes on his plate. “Just... don't.”

 

Mycroft began to eat, and they sat in silence on the rooftop, neither of them noticing the beautiful nighttime view of the city it provided. Sherlock would have noticed. Sherlock loved London.

 

“I have a coworker who recently returned from Afghanistan,” Mycroft said, breaking the long silence. He sipped the glass of water before him.

 

John lifted his gaze to meet Mycroft's eyes with another heavy sigh. He seemed to be sighing a lot lately. “Good for him,” he said.

 

“He seems to be suffering quite a lot of post-traumatic stress disorder.”

 

John shut his eyes huffing out a laugh, bitterness coiling in his stomach. “Is that what you think I have?” He tossed down his fork and spoon with a clatter. “PTSD?” His voice raised, echoing a bit.

 

_'I don't care if you're mad about the blood in the bathtub, if you keep yelling like that you'll give our position away! Why must you always shout?'_

 

“Or are you suggesting I see a therapist again? Pay to see someone just to talk about your secrets? Is that what you do?”

 

Mycroft tilted his head slightly. “I was merely going to ask if you suggested therapy or some other form of treatment, since you are a doctor who experienced the war.”

 

John felt himself flush, his ears getting hot. He stared evenly across at the man in the ridiculously expensive suit sitting across from him, eating his chips with a knife and fork. “I'm in no position to give advice to anyone,” he finally said. He began eating his own chips, but with his hands, licking the salt from them.

 

“On the contrary, you seem to be dealing quite well with your recent loss,” Mycroft said, wrinkling his nose at John's behavior.

 

“My recent- do you hear yourself? It's your loss, too! And the funeral was only a week ago, and-” John's voice choked out and his stomach clenched and suddenly he wasn't hungry anymore. He put down his fork and knife once more and slumped back into his chair, feeling heavy and tired again. “Just take me home.” Numb. He waited for the anger, for the sadness. But it hadn't come yet. Just numbness.

 

“I've been quite lonely,” Mycroft announced.

 

John's jaw dropped and he gaped at the other man. “What?”

 

“To be perfectly honest, my brother was the only person whose company I could tolerate. And now that he is gone, I...” he trailed off, lowering his gaze.

 

John let out a tired laugh, weak and irritated. He couldn't help himself. “Are you asking me- what, to be friends?”

 

Mycroft shrugged and lifted his cloth napkin from his lap, folding it onto the table and pushing his plate away. “My Friday evenings are quite empty. I look forward to seeing you next week.”

 

John said nothing, couldn't possibly say anything. He followed the man in the suit to the car waiting for them and took the ride back to the market where he'd begun. He still had to buy milk.

 

 


	2. Denial

_Denial_

 

“I'm telling you, he's not dead!” John Watson shouted in the face of Detective Lestrade, a man much grayer and older than he had been only weeks before. “He can't be!”

 

“We all saw the body, John,” Lestrade said, his eyes wrinkled around the corner with half-hidden pity. “It was on the news.”

 

_'Never trust the media, John, they only know what they are told and they observe even less than you.'_

 

“He's Sherlock!” John spat, fisting his hands at his sides. He didn't care if every soul in New Scotland Yard heard him. He knew he was right. He knew it. Sherlock Holmes lived. He would know if he didn't. “Of course he'd be able to trick everyone!”

 

Anderson shoved open Lestrade's office door, pushing it shut behind him. “Sir, I-”

 

John turned on him, grabbing the front of his shirt with both fists and slamming him into the wall. “You son of a bitch, this is your fault-”

 

“-I agree!” Anderson said, exhaling hard as his back hit the wall, pinned fliers falling from the wall. “He's alive!”

 

John froze, staring into the other man's eyes. He hadn't shaved, John noticed. Anderson wasn't keeping up appearances. Not any more than John was, he thought, lifting a hand to rub a hand over his own half-grown beard. He stepped back and released the other man. “He's alive,” he agreed.

 

“Sherlock Holmes is deceased,” Mycroft Holmes nasal voice stated as the door swung open again.

 

 

“Do you follow me everywhere?” John threw his arms into the air. “Seriously, don't you have anything better to do than to lie to me?”

 

“He's Sherlock Holmes, he has to be alive!” Anderson agreed.

 

Lestrade frowned, shaking his head slowly. He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it, finding nothing to say. He, at least, seemed completely unsurprised at Mycroft's entrance; he'd known the Holmes brothers far too long for that.

 

Mycroft nodded towards the door. “We have dinner plans,” he said. “It is Friday.”

 

“Tell me the truth,” John demanded as Mycroft led him out of the office. “Tell me the truth, or so help me, I-”

 

“-You know the facts, Doctor Watson,” Mycroft said as they exited the building. He opened his umbrella for the pouring rain and eyed John as the blond man stood in the downpour.

 

A black car drove up and Mycroft entered as the doorman opened it. John stared after him, and then followed. He may as well.

 

Plates of fish and chips sat on a table in the back of the car, practically a limo, and glasses of wine. “You really need to eat more. You've lost three pounds since I last saw you.”

 

“Two,” John spat. But the smell of the food got to his stomach and he tore into it, stuffing a bite of fish into his face.

 

_'You eat too much, how can your brain possibly work with all of those calories slowing it down?'_

 

“Three,” Mycroft corrected him.

 

“Sherlock is alive,” John muttered down at his food. “I know he is.”

 

Mycroft said nothing. They finished their food in silence.


	3. Anger

_Anger_

 

“Bastard,” John whispered, hunched over in his armchair, no shadows cast in the dark of the midnight room.

 

Across from him the other sat, empty. But John hadn't moved it yet. He wouldn't. He couldn't.

 

“It's not my chair to move,” John mumbled to himself, staring down into the bottle of beer he held between both hands. He rolled it between his palms and felt the brown liquid swish inside. “It's heavy, and awkward, and it's not my bloody chair to move!” John lifted the bottle and gulped down three swigs of beer before wiping his mouth of the back of his arm, his sleeve already stained, anyway.

 

“And the damn skull,” John continued, turning to glare at it on the mantlepiece. “Still here! Still staring at me, watching my every move!”

 

John shoved to his feet and stomped to the fireplace, snatching up the skull and glaring into its dead, empty sockets.

 

_'No, I won't tell you where I got the skull. It's origin is of no import. Do not pester me about it again or I'll think you jealous. Honestly, John, jealous of a little skull for my attention?'_

 

“I was,” John exhaled. “I was jealous.” His nostrils flared and his eyes sparked in the dark and he lifted the skull, hand above his head, fingers digging into the gaping maw of the brainless thing and he flung his arm, and-

 

_'Do not move my things, they are in specific places for specific reasons which you are incapable of understanding!'_

 

And he didn't release.

 

“Bastard, bastard, bastard!” John shouted, slamming the skull back onto the mantlepiece. He flung the bottle instead, and it smashed, shattered, splashing against the wallpaper, against the yellow face staring him down, beer in the bullet holes.

 

“Do be more careful, you may injure someone you do not intend to in his place,” Mycroft said as he stepped into the room, umbrella acting as a cane as he tapped it on the carpet.

 

John reeled on the other man, snarling. “You! You're the one who taught him to hide things! To not trust anyone! To not even tell me-”

 

“-Tell you what, John?” Mycroft asked, and his voice was low, strong, but soft. He looked own his large nose and said nothing as a man entered the room, carrying two large trays with silver platter covers over them. He sat them on the coffee table and with a whirl, unveiled platters of fish and chips.

 

“This again? Still?” John spat, reeling on the chef and snatching his plate from the table. “You bastard, you can't buy me off with food, or use it to spy on me, or whatever the hell you're doing! You're part of this! I know you are! It's probably all your fault, and-”

 

“-What is my fault?” Mycroft asked as he sat stiffly on the sofa, unbuttoning his suit jacket, beginning to cut into his fish. “Your rage? I rather think your emotions are your own, Doctor.”

 

“My rage?” John ran both of his hands into his own hair and yanked. His breath came in hot, quick gasps. His vision spun. “You took him! You took him from me! He's gone, and it's your fault!”

 

Mycroft ignored him, chewing silently on his fish before taking a sip of the water the chef poured into two goblets for them. He dabbed a napkin against his lips.

 

John snatched up his own glass and flung it, smashing it against the same wall. “He left without a word! Without telling me anything! Is that how it always was? Did I know nothing?” He kicked the table hard, the dishes clattering.

 

Mycroft raised his gaze in a slow, impassive gesture, folding his hands across his lap. “I have no idea what my brother told you, or did not tell you, as the case may be. I did not, as you may recall, have much control over him.”

 

“Oh, but didn't you?” John spat. He rubbed his palms up and down his pants, palms sweating, teeth grit together, red filling his vision. “You spied on us! You still watch me! You control the damn government, don't tell me you couldn't control Sher-”

 

The name choked in his throat and he gagged, grasping his neck with both hands.

 

“I see that you are having an unpleasant evening, perhaps I should go.” Mycroft stood, folding his napkin neatly and lying it across his half-eaten plate. He re-buttoned his jacket and held out one hand to shake John's.

 

John sucked in a hard breath and swung the fist at his side.

 

Mycroft reeled back, falling back to the couch.

 

“Get out,” John growled, fist stinging, ears ringing. “Get the bloody hell out of our home!”

 

The older Holmes stared up at John Watson with some shock in his usually serious eyes. His eyebrows raised and he touched the growing red mark on his cheek.

 

“Now!” John roared with every breath in his body.

 

Mycroft stood, faster than John had ever seen him move, and vanished the way he'd come.

 

John smashed the rest of the dishes and punched a hole in the wall before the night was done. Damaging the walls in frustration, he thought, now that Sherlock would understand.


	4. Bargaining

_Bargaining_

 

“I should have listened to him,” John said, his voice hollow as he stared out of the window of the sanitary psychiatrist office to the street below. “If I'd paid attention, I'm sure he said something, a clue, a... something.”

 

“You believe he may have attempted to communicate something to you?” His therapist hummed and scratched at her notepad.

 

John could have turned and read the thing, even across the room, even upside down, but he didn't. It didn't matter. “I've gone over it and over it in my head. Everything he said that day, that week, I... he had to have known. He had a plan.”

 

“How will it help you to understand that plan?” she asked. “Will it change anything?”

 

John's shoulders tensed and raised to his shoulders. He tapped his knuckles on the widow sill, his nostrils flaring as he exhaled a hard breath. “If I had listened more closely, he may have needed me to do something. He may have been asking for help, and I missed it. He may have been telling me what really happened, in code, in... something.”

 

His therapist was silent, her eyes on his back, he could feel them without even turning to see. She thought he was mad. Everyone thought he was mad. Maybe he was.

 

' _Keep your eyes fixed on me!'_

 

“He had a plan. I know him. He had a plan,” John insisted. Outside the dreary London day began to drizzle, gray water flooding the filthy streets. He hadn't brought an umbrella. He didn't care.

 

“It was a trick. Somehow, it was a trick. All I have to do is figure it out, what his words meant, or find whatever clue he left behind, and then-”

 

“-And then what?” his therapist asked. She crossed her legs and leaned into him a bit, and John turned to look at the woman's all-knowing eyes. “What would change?”

 

John didn't have an answer for that. His stomach jerked. “If I could just figure it out,” he whispered. “If I could figure it out, I could find him.”

 

She looked back down at her notepad, writing a few words. John didn't have to come closer to know what they were. Denial. And bargaining.

 

“I'm done,” John growled, and he yanked his coat from the wall and stormed from the office.

 

“You shouldn't speak to your therapist in such a... harsh tone,” Mycroft Holmes' voice said from John's right as he stormed from the building. “She is, after all, only attempting to help you.”

 

John felt his blood pulse in his ears and he spun on the other man. “What do you want?” he shouted.

 

Mycroft blinked at him, a bit startled, standing with his umbrella over his head, a few drops of rain falling on it in small pitter-patters. “Want?”

 

“Yes! What. Do. You. Want?” John stepped into Mycroft's personal bubble, crowding him against the wall he stood near. “Are you waiting for me to break? To shatter? To kill someone? What?”

 

“I hardly think you're capable of cold-blooded murder, Doctor Watson,” Mycroft said smoothly, as if he didn't have an army captain breathing rage in his face.

 

“Oh, I wouldn't be so certain,” John laughed, harsh and furious. “There's a cabby who'd disagree, if he wasn't dead.” His fingernails were digging into his palms, he knew, but they'd been doing that so much in the past few months he had permanent indentations now.

 

“You did that to protect someone you loved,” Mycroft said smoothly.

 

“I did that to protect your brother,” John hissed, spittle flying from his lips onto Mycroft's doughy-neutral expression. To his credit, the other man did not flinch. “And that's what I'm trying to do now!”

 

“Protect him?” Mycroft's lips turned into the slightest of sneers. He pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket – a small MH embroidered on one corner – and patted the spit from his cheeks and nose. “And how would you do that?” he folded the handkerchief and tucked it back into his inside jacket pocket. “You're a retired army captain and a doctor with no surgery, what exactly could you assist him with, on this imagined adventure I've set him upon?”

 

John's gut flexed, air hissed out through clenched teeth, and he tasted metal in his mouth. “I could help him! I always helped him, he needs me-”

 

“-Sherlock Holmes is a gravestone, a ghost, and you cannot protect him any more now than you could when he was in London.” Mycroft's eyes hardened then, and John's blood heated in his face, his cheeks flushing. “Which was, of course, not at all. In the end, what could you really do? You were a distraction, a liability, a... source of sentiment.” He shook his head slowly and watched as John's eyes widened in horrified rage. “Perhaps my dear brother would have been better off without you from the beginning.”

 

John's mouth opened and shut, teeth clicking together as he sucked in air. No. No, Sherlock was his best friend, he made Sherlock laugh, he- “-made him happy,” John wheezed out, his lungs feeling fragile as paper wings.

 

“And where did it get him?” Mycroft asked. He then cleared his throat, righted his umbrella again, and nodded towards the cafe across the street. “Shall we? I've made reservations.”

 

John just watched Mycroft silently, saying nothing, the words buzzing in his head even as the other man shrugged and retreated to his tinted dark car.

 

And where did it get him?

 


	5. Depression

_Depression_

 

Food tasted of dust. Dust like the particles that filtered through the thin bits of light managing their way past the blinds. The bed creaked when he moved, and that was annoying, so he'd stopped.

 

The hotel was fine. Clean. Nice-ish. John ignored the television. He ignored the room service menu. He'd gotten there, stripped naked, and crawled into bed to curl into a ball and try to breathe.

 

But even the air tasted of dust.

 

He heard other guests pass in the hall, and all he could do was stare across at the door, the door that would never open, not by the man he most missed.

 

God, he had loved him, hadn't he? Loved him, his best friend, his Sherlock, the mad genius, loved him more than a brother, more than a lover. Sherlock was simply...

 

John groaned and rolled onto his back. His stomach growled. He ignored it. Food didn't matter. He didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore. And what was the point, anyway, in fighting it? In bothering to live? It hurt, hurt like sandpaper over every nerve in his body, like icy cold water and hot flashes and then numbing blindness. Colors faded. Medicine didn't matter. Work didn't matter. Food didn't matter. Sleep couldn't happen, and when it did, it lasted for days.

 

He was a broken soldier, like the toys he'd had as a child after Harry'd gotten mad and snapped them in half. Broken, scarred, and lost without his partner in crime, or in solving crime at least, John Watson was... useless. He couldn't even think clearly enough to see the people he'd have to treat, let alone care for them.

 

All of the colors faded. He had to leave 221B. He couldn't be there anymore. But the hotel was no better, and he was sure by the time he found a new place it wouldn't change a thing either. No. This was his life. This was the way his life was supposed to have been after the war, after he was sent back, sent away from the battle, from the place he'd felt closest to home. But he'd been unable to save those men, and now he'd been unable to save Sherlock. This was penance, this was deserved. He deserved to suffer. And maybe he deserved to die.

 

He sat up and pulled his gun from the side table, where he'd hidden it. He weighed it in his hand and remembered Sherlock shooting holes in the wall. He almost smiled, but couldn't. His lips weighed too much. He lifted the gun and pressed it to his lips with a kiss of death. He'd have to do it this way, he reasoned. It was too easy to survive as a vegetable if he shot himself in the temple, but if he did it this way, stuck it in his mouth, aimed up at an angle...

 

The knock on the door startled him.

 

Good thing the safety was still on, he realized, as he pushed the gun back to the drawer and slammed it shut. His heart raced. His hands shook.

 

He went to the door and there stood Mycroft Holmes, cool and collected as ever, with his usual bored face. Behind him was a hotel maid, pushing a rolling cart covered in plates that smelled of fried fish.

 

John groaned and settled onto the end of the bed. He watched as the woman unloaded the plates onto the small table in the corner. He said nothing until she was gone.

 

Mycroft Holmes stood, hands folded behind his back, and peered down at John. He finally frowned and tilted his head. “Do not do anything foolish, Doctor Watson,” he finally said. “I keep my promises, and I swore I would keep you safe.”

 

John's jaw dropped. He still tasted the metal. His eyes stung. He lifted his hands to his eyes, pressed his palms to them hard before lowering them again. He moved to the table and lifted the cover on his dish. His stomach growled despite himself.

 

Mycroft settled across from him, folding his napkin, revealing his own dish.

 

They ate in silence for minutes until Mycroft finally spoke. “I've gained weight,” he finally said, lifting an eyebrow at John. “I do blame you and your addiction to fried foods.”

 

“My addiction-” John huffed, “-You're the one always bringing fish and chips.”

 

“It's your favorite dish,” Mycroft said, eyebrows drawing together.

 

John huffed a laugh, or an almost-laugh anyway, and picked at his food. How very Holmes, and an ache spread through his body at the thought.

 

Mycroft stayed for an hour, talking away about the new idiots working for him, and how inevitable the fall of the EU was if things continued as they were, and John nodded at the right places. When Mycroft left John knew it was because the other man thought he wouldn't kill himself now, that he wouldn't go through with it. John felt reassured by that fact.

 

He threw up his dinner and slept for the 36 hours.


	6. Acceptance

_Acceptance_

 

Her name was Mary.

 

How perfect, he thought, how simple, how classic, how divine. Mary. She had blond hair and she was petite and she was the opposite of the ghost that haunted him in so many ways.

 

And yet... she was clever. Clever, yes, he could almost hear Sherlock say in his mind, she's clever. And witty. And she laughed at his own stupid jokes, which weren't witty at all. And she smiled when he waved at her in the morning, and he caught himself flirting with her during his lunch break.

 

She was a nurse. She was charming. She was... the first color he could see, yellow and golden and glowing.

 

She took his breath away.

 

She made him... not forget, but... distracted.

 

Distracted was enough. Distracted was plenty. Distracted was probably all he'd ever have.

 

The job had come easily, too easily, considering his long period of unemployment. Sixteen months was too long, he knew, to do nothing. And yet, it had taken him that long to get out of bed again. Longer than it had taken after the war. Longer than it had taken after his father died. What did that say about him?

 

But he was able to go to work, missing only a handful of days at first from sheer anxiety and complete insecurity. His boss was understanding. And Mary was there, the sweet nurse he'd met on his first day, and she smiled, and that was when he couldn't help but smile back.

 

How long had it been since he smiled?

 

He shaved carefully that morning, and made sure to wear a nice shirt, the one with the blue checks, the one Sherlock had complimented, in his own odd way, saying it wasn't as horrid as his other clothes.

 

John smiled as he heard the other man's voice in his head.

 

He could do that now, smile when he thought of Sherlock. It still hurt. He was still... sad. Very, very sad. But he could smile. Maybe soon he could visit his grave. Maybe, if things went well, he could take Mary with him. He could tell her about Sherlock, he had a sense she'd be understanding. She wouldn't ask stupid questions like the nature of their relationship, he thought, she'd just... listen.

 

He needed someone to listen.

 

Someone who wasn't Mycroft, he thought, as the black car rolled up next to him.

 

He pocketed his phone and looked up at the car. Mycroft Holmes stepped out, tapping his umbrella against the sidewalk. “I have an appointment in an hour, do hurry and-”

 

“-Not today,” John cut him off. He let his lips curl up, just a bit, into a small smile. “I'm busy.”

 

Mycroft stopped and arched his eyebrows. He peered silently at John. “A date.”

 

“Hopefully,” John said. “Haven't asked yet.”

 

“She will say yes. You are her type,” Mycroft said, and John wasn't even annoyed that he had clearly been keeping an eye on him. “Still, do be careful.”

 

“I'm not that fragile,” John said. Mycroft worried about his emotional state, he realized, and he let his smile return. “Thanks. For... everything.”

 

Mycroft was silent until he finally lowered his head in a small nod.

 

John turned and went back into the hospital to ask Mary Morstan to dinner. He had a feeling she'd say yes. He'd have a good evening for once, maybe even flirt, maybe even laugh.

 

Sherlock Holmes died, but that didn't mean John Watson had, too.


End file.
